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Topic: Are "hardcore" games a dying breed? (Read 13839 times)

Krakow Sam you seem to think that I mean they are taking over right this minute. They are not and for now hardcore games still rule that is true. But its slowly happening and first off all throw steam right out the window, because PC gaming is not included in to the equation, PC gaming will always remain hardcore mostly due to the fact that casuals gamers don't have the know how to use them. PC gaming requires more effort then buying a console and popping in a disc. When I am talking about the casual takeover I am referring to console gaming only.

Its happening slowly but its is happening, while its uncommon to find a straight up casual game on the 360 or PS3 as I said before some company's are implementing causal elements in to hardcore games such as Fable and Assassins creed. And with the upcoming NATAL and PS3 motion controller that's only going to get much much worse. Fact of life is people will go where the money is, and the casual Wii market is doing better then the hardcore market with less time consuming and less expensive games.

Soon many new console games are going to be based around those devices and if they do well then that will be the new standard.

Pat I'm not sure where you got the idea that the hardcore group is small, before the Wii we were the only group and we were and remain huge, we are the ones that make games like modern warfare 2 a success because we buy those games, Grandma wii does not. Since the wii we haven't gotten any smaller but the causal audience exploded in mass as it drew in many non gamers. I'm not sure why you a fan of Dragon age mass effect and Command and conquer do not consider yourself to be a part of the hardcore group, its possible to be both. I am hardcore through and through but i still love peggle and plants vs zombies to death.

Krakow Sam you seem to think that I mean they are taking over right this minute. They are not and for now hardcore games still rule that is true. But its slowly happening and first off all throw steam right out the window, because PC gaming is not included in to the equation, PC gaming will always remain hardcore mostly due to the fact that casuals gamers don't have the know how to use them. PC gaming requires more effort then buying a console and popping in a disc. When I am talking about the casual takeover I am referring to console gaming only.

Ok, cool. I don't really care about the consoles since my beloved gamecube ceased to be relevant.

"the proof is that a single game like Farmville have more players than all games combined that EA sold last year. Hardcore is just a few million players (loud players true). While casual is hundreds of millions, and growing fast, and the scary part is that casual players spend a lot of money on games, they just spend it in smaller amounts. Already Zynga, which is only 2 years old, is almost worth what EA is, and their overhead and expenses are A LOT less than EA. Zynga and other social gaming companies have a much bigger impact than hardcore gaming. The money just can't compare. A hardcore game can cost $50m+ to create, and might not make back it's cost. Casual games are a tiny fraction and can make money continuously and to a bigger audience. You will see EA and others go this direction. Zynga has 60m daily players. 1 in 6 people in the US are actively playing a Zynga game. That is ... crazy. Hardcore can't compete with this. How can games like Mass Effect survive in this environment?"~his twitter

That's pretty interesting, though I gotta wonder, isn't that new influx of "casual gamers" completely separate from the already existing gaming bloc that buy games like ME 2 and Fallout 3?

Pat I'm not sure where you got the idea that the hardcore group is small

It is small because it's an extreme. Hardcore gamers have always been small in number and have always been a minority group. They're just the most vocal because they tend to care more about what is happening to the product.

Pat I'm not sure where you got the idea that the hardcore group is small

It is small because it's an extreme. Hardcore gamers have always been small in number and have always been a minority group. They're just the most vocal because they tend to care more about what is happening to the product.

I think we have different definitions of a hardcore gamer. A hardcore gamer is a gamer that enjoys things like half life and mass effect or starcraft as opposed to Wii fit and peggle or rock band. Hardcore gamers have never been small. Hardcore gamers read magazines and visit game trailers or other gaming sites. Casual gamers see a commercial or an internet side bar ad.

You can't list specific games when defining what a hardcore gamer is. Hardcore gamers are designated by their habits and involvement with the industry. Yes, Mass Effect and StarCraft and Half-Life skew toward the hardcore gamers; however, none of those things make you a hardcore gamer. Hardcore gamers are the ones that make the news and hardcore gamers are the ones that yell and scream and holler. The invisible majority doesn't talk and doesn't really care. They play their game and if they can't finish it or if the game is broken they just stop playing and do whatever.

We, as gamers leaning more toward the hardcore, need to remove ourselves from the clubhouse. Sure, we are the "professionals". We can name the release date of every Mario game and detail the most efficient way to get the flag back to base in 2Fort. But that does not mean that we are everyone, nor does it mean that we are the majority. Even with the recent upswing in casual gaming, you cannot deny that we have been outnumbered for years. Of course, if you name games like StarCraft, you're going to be right and hardcore gamers will be legion. But think of every mediocre game out there. The kind of game that we probably wouldn't touch. Someone out there is buying them. If they weren't most of these companies would have gone down the tubes years ago. And that's where the simple fact that we are outnumbered reveals itself.

For every triple A title out there, you have two dozen games that are bad, poorly marketed, or just ignored for reasons unknown. But we're the only ones that know to stay away from them. Most of my casual gamer friends have shelves full of games you or I would probably never touch.

And speaking of a hardcore gamer's friends, consider this. Ask a hardcore gamer or maybe think back to your own experiences. In my experience I don't have enough fingers and toes to list all of the people that ask me if they should buy this or ignore that. Hardcore gamers are a conduit through which the mass market gathers the data it needs to make a decision. A game usually does well if we like it because we tell all of our casual gamer friends that it's cool.

What that means though is that while we are a small group, our impact on the industry at large is fairly great. But from a sheer numbers perspective, hardcore gamers have been in the minority and always will be.

Every single genre has a wide variety of styles in order to appeal to a wide variety of audiences. It will be no different with gaming. In time, we will see a wide range of both "hardcore" and "casual" games. The only reason this seems strange is because we're only getting into the casual games over the last few years. They have exploded in popularity yes, but will they eradicate good games? No. If anything, large scale, epic games will become more common as both the technology increases to accomodate it, and the general acceptance of gaming by society as a whole brings in more money and developers.

Keep in mind that many, many gamers in the future will start with casual games when they are young before "graduating" in time to more hardcore games. That's how I got into to gaming, and that's how I bet a lot of you got into gaming.

Nobody (except for Crazen because he is a freak of nature raised in a lab to be the human supreme) takes their first steps into gaming with something like Mass Effect.

he first games I played where things like Age of empires, Shadow of collossus (still awesome) resident evil (not quite so great. then again, I never got past the first level) Final Fantansy (realy not awesome. realy lame, though), and other non shovel-ware.

Every single genre has a wide variety of styles in order to appeal to a wide variety of audiences. It will be no different with gaming. In time, we will see a wide range of both "hardcore" and "casual" games. The only reason this seems strange is because we're only getting into the casual games over the last few years. They have exploded in popularity yes, but will they eradicate good games? No. If anything, large scale, epic games will become more common as both the technology increases to accomodate it, and the general acceptance of gaming by society as a whole brings in more money and developers.

Keep in mind that many, many gamers in the future will start with casual games when they are young before "graduating" in time to more hardcore games. That's how I got into to gaming, and that's how I bet a lot of you got into gaming.

Nobody (except for Crazen because he is a freak of nature raised in a lab to be the human supreme) takes their first steps into gaming with something like Mass Effect.

Very good points there..

But I'm wondering, what's to stop companies like EA from just creating things like Farmville, which would make more money (allegedly) than ME?